“Super” from Jay Crow Comics – A Review

Last month at the Salt Lake Comic Con FanX, I was fortunate enough to happen across the table for Jay Crow Comics. They were hawking their new book, “Super,” and were kind enough to allow me to do a review of Issue #1 for them.

Let’s start simple. The art is excellent. Not hyper-realistic. I feel like I’m reading a COMICBOOK (one word, per Stan Lee’s instructions). And that’s a GOOD thing. Too many times an independent comic will look like it’s trying to be more of a storyboard for a movie than a honest-to-God COMICBOOK, when that’s what it is.

Jay Crow Comics clearly had a vision for how they wanted the book to look and, consequently, how it would feel. I think they’ve pulled that off quite nicely.

From a story-line standpoint, it’s tough to say from a single issue just how the overall arc of the story is going to play itself out. I’m not sure that I’m a fan of the multiple time-cuts that this first issue uses, but that may just be the writer in me trying to impose my sense of order onto another writer’s style. It works the way it is, but I’m not 100% sold on it.

That being said, I did find the first third of the issue to be a bit blase, or even predictable in its depiction of the titular hero and his background/powers (so far), but the last 12-14 pages really started to solidify what was going on and give me the road-map of the world of “Super.”

The last 2 pages, though, should have been dripping with cliche, but were instead handled wonderfully, and I can’t help but give some of the credit for that to the art, which lent the somewhat stiff narration the sense of desperation that the final 3 frames needed.

Overall, I found “Super” to have a wonderful upside to it, and I wish the guys over at Jay Crow Comics all the best in getting their future issues out there.

If you can lay your hands on it, I say that you should give it a read.

Nice work, fellas!

And finally, as I tell all the folks I do reviews for, I’m always open to the prospect of reviewing more of your work. I try to be honest, but fair, and hope that you appreciate what feedback I’ve provided for them.